Exploring various thermosetting resin classes for passive photonic applications

An overview about recent developments in the field of thermosetting polymers for photonic applications is given, covering a broad range of polymer classes and spectrum of applications. Fluorinated polymers show some advantages over non-fluorinated systems: They exhibit high thermostabilities, low refractive indices and high transparency, makes them useful for optical claddings for glass-fibres used for transmission of laser-light for surgical lasers and such for materials processing. Polycyanurate ester resins, exhibit outstanding thermal properties, as well as the perfluorocyclobutane polymers. The authors developed several combinations of core-cladding materials using both classes of high-performance thermosets, exhibiting broad ranges of refractive index-tunability at low optical losses in the IR. The use of polymer waveguides leads due to their high thermo optical coefficient to a significant increase in the temperature sensitivity of the integrated optical components. In order to avoid this, the authors have developed fluorinated nanocomposites which show a significant reduction in the thermal-optical coefficient with good transparency and a low refractive index.